Introduction to British English Pronunciation

1. What you will learn: Hello and welcome to next level English. My name is Julia and I am a qualified native English speaker. This is a course that you can keep coming back to, to perfect your pronunciation. Your going to learn the difference between Mano thongs and thunks. You're also going to learn the difference between lung sounds and short sounds. We're going to cover the most tricky sounds. And also, I'm going to test you to make sure you've understood. I'm going to teach you all the sounds you need to know to sound like a native English speaker. Let's go. 2. Monothongs : Here you can see the international phonemic chart. Well, it's this. Well, these are all the sounds you need to speak English. As you may know. English is not a phonetic language, so we don't always say words the way we write them. That's why if you look the word up in a dictionary, it will tell you exactly how to say it using these phonemes. Even native English speakers don't know how to pronounce every words. So that's why these phonemes are useful to natives and non-natives. If I read a word in a book that I've never heard before, I might need to look out to see the fun names, to know how to pronounce it. Said, there are 44 sounds. We can divide them into two groups, vowel sounds and consonant sounds. The vowel sounds can be further divided into two more groups. We have mono songs and we have diphthongs. Let's look first at the monarchy thongs. Now, these can be divided into two groups. We have short vowel sounds and we have a long vowel sounds. Now the first vowel sound we're going to do is a long vowel sounds. How do we know that it's a long vowel sounds? Well, have a look at the symbol. You can see that it has two dots. Those two dots mean it's a long sound. So the first sound is E. Can you say e? Luca, my mouth, I'm smiling. Ii, you have to really raise the corners of your mouth. Plato, smiling. E, like sheep, or like teeth, or like me. The next sound is a short one, and that's a light in. And you say a in my mouth. Like India. In India. A. The next sound is like, good. Can you say, oh, you should feel the sound here in your throat. Oh, oh, like wood or goods or stood. The next sound is another long sound, harder. We know, well, have a look at the symbol. There are two dots and we know that that means it's a long sound. The next sound is UX. Can you say, ooh, look at my lips. Ooh, I'm making my lips and very tight and pushing them forwards. Ooh, look at my, my lips. Ooh, sorry. First put ellipse like this. Put your lips forward, nice and tight like this. And say, ooh, ooh, ooh. Like shoot or like who? Or like shoe. The next sound is a very common sound. It's can you say, look at my mouth. I'm opening the four corners of my mouth to make this sound. Dike, Edward, O, like bed or head, or Teddy. The next sound is the most common sounds in the English language, and it's also one of the trickiest. And that sound has a special name. It's called the schwa. And the schwa sounds like this. Now I'm making this sound from my throat and I'm pushing this era and I'm just pushing the air up from my throat and make a so look at my mouth. I need to open my mouth. Can you say? Now we can find the schwa sound at the start in the middle or the end of a word. So it might come at the start of a word like amount. It might come at the end of a word like teacher. The next sound is another long sound. And you can see that from the two dots. And that sound is, Can you say again is coming from my throat? Uh, my, my mouth at that, my chin. So you need to push your lower jaw forwards. This is the sound that we make if we don't like something or with disgusted by something. We might say. We find this sound in words like Earth or birds, or heard. The next sound is another long sound, and that's all. This is a very English sounds. Or my mouth, look at my lips. They can very tight now. Or, or. And we find this sound in words like or awful, awkward, door pour. The next sound is a very common sound. And that sound is, Can you say, ah, so you need to open your mouth quite wide and make the sound from the back of your throat. Light Act, or cat or Matt or hat. The next sound is another tricky one. It confuses a lot of people. And that sound is because my mouth and I'm making the sound again from my throat. Can you say that the shape of my mouth, I'm opening my mouth quite wide and I'm pushing the sound from my throat. And we find this sounding words like up or ultimate, or uncle, or until or match. The next sound is one of my favorite sounds and that's the one I call the dentist sound. What sounds you make when you go to the dentist? Well, he tells you to say, you need to open your mouth quiet wide and the sound comes from your throat. R. R. Remember we can't make the sound unless we open our mouth quite wide. And this sound is very English sounds. Can you say r, r, r. We find this sound in words like army, arm, article, or calm. And our final vowel sound is another show one. And that is all. Can you say? Oh, my now, oh, look at my lips. They're quite tight. Oh, oh, say you need to make this sound using your throats and you need to put your lips quite tightly. 00. And we find this sound in words like on or orange or off. 3. Dipthongs: In this section, we're going to look at diphthongs was a diphthong. Well, it's basically a sound that's two sounds together or two movements. So let's have a look at the first one. The first step phone is ER, Can you say EA? Look at my mouth, ea, ea. And we find this sound in words like EA or come here, or TIA. The next sound is a. A. Can you hear the two sounds? And can you see the two movements? A. So it starts off like this at a and ends with the a, a. We find the sound in words like ache or face, or train, or way. Okay, so the next sound is probably the most difficult sounds in English. And let me let you into a little secret even I, I'm not sure how to say this sound. It's a diphthong, so it's got two movements. And that sound is, I think all or, so it's like the long or sound, but there's another sound at the end of it all. Or to very subtle sound. Or can you say or, or. We find this in words like poor, poor me, some more milk. Also in words like tourists. The reason this is so tricky is because when we find this sound, lots of people, including natives, pronounce this sound simply or as a long vowel sound, like door. Okay, so some people might say tourists, but actually I say tourists, I just pronounce it, or that's why it's tricky. So please don't worry too much about that sound. The next sound we use when we want to get someone's attention, we say, can you say, let me do it slowly. So it starts with a sound like on, and it ends with a yet sound like e. So it goes, oh me, oh, look at my mouth, oily. And we find this in words like oil or boy or alloy. The next step, thong is o. This is the sound we make when we're surprised, we say, Oh, can you say, oh. So a mouse starts here and ends with what sounds. So we have to put our lips quite tightly together at the end. So it goes like this. Can you say? You might say, so what may surprise? We say, oh, we find this sound in words like only or show or go. The next sound is another tricky sound. So the sound is arr, arr, arr, arr. So the sound starts up here and interrupts down to here. And so you need to use your throat to make this sound and it goes. And so we find this sounding words like air or hair, or over there. The next sound is I. Can you say I, I. So it starts up here and ends with a year. Can you say i, i? So we find the sound in words like I, my or high. The next sound is the sound you make when you hurt yourself. We say, how can you say OWL? Owl. And the first sound is a sound. And the second sound is sound with your lips quite tight at the front. So it's how, how can you say how, how we find this sound in words like owl or cow? Or how? If you want to practice this sound, you can say how now brown cow. And you can find that sound in all of those words. In the next video, we're going to look at the consonant sounds. 4. Consonants: So the first consonant sound is pi. Pi. So we need to put our lips tightly together and push the air out. And we find the sound in words like p or pizza, o up, up. The next sound is birth. But can you say but, but we find the sound in words like boy or boats or low. Some people get really confused with the P sound and the bees down the pub and above. So here's a way that you can practice the difference to know if you're saying it correctly. Okay, so what's the difference? If I say part, look what happens to my piece of paper. If I say ba, ba, ba, ba, can you see the difference? So when you say the air is shooting out, but when I say boats, boats is any moving little boats. Boats. Can you see I'm not pushing the air out as much. So the next sound is tau. So you need to put your teeth together for this one, tau. And we find this sound in words like t or t, or hot. The next sound is daka, daka, daka. So we find the sound in words like dog or dots or odd. So notice the difference between and that said the next sound is Chung. Chang. Can you say char? Char. We find the sound in words like cheese or the next town. And this is the best sound is gel. Joe, can you say Jar, Jar, Jar. And we find the sound in words like June or jump or NJ, edge. An exam is come, come, and we find the sound in words like car or cats or hack. The next sound is Go. Gr, Can you say go, go. And we find this sound in words like go or get or log. The next consonant sound is Can you say SaaS? Saas. And we find this sound in words like C, or sink or snake sites. So we make this sound by pushing the air against our team sites. The next sound is. So again, it's another buzzy sound where the air vibrates. And we find the sound in words like x2 or zebra. The next sound is sharp. Sharp. Can you say sharp? Sharp. And we find this sound in words like should or shell or she. The next sound is Zhao Ziyang. And we find this sound in words like television. Television. Now, we must not confuse this sound Asia with GEA, like June, this is a euro. It's not jump. Jump, like television. The next sound is the sound by putting our lips together and pushing the FMR throws. So you should feel the sound here. We find the sound in words like man or many or names like Amma, the next sound is. So this is a very nasal sound. Can you say, you should feel this area vibrates in. So we find this sound in words like now or never or any. The next sound is really important to learn in English. It's the ng sound. Again, it's another nasal sounds. So whenever you see an, a G written together, it's almost always that sounds. So we find this sound and words like sing or bring. All we find that in any word that ends with ing, like swimming or eating. The next sound is ha, ha. It's coming from our throats. Ha, and we find this sounding words like hats or he, or may hang. The next sound is 00. And we find this sound in words like love or hello or livable. The next sound is her. Her, her, look at the shape of my lips. Her semi, my lips are quite tight here. We find the sound in words like red or rats or around. Penultimate sound is what can you say? Wow, wow. You have your lips quite tied together that law. So we find the sound in words like wet or whether all we and our final sound, our 44th sound is yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So again, this sand is made in the throat. Yeah. Yeah. And we found the sound in words like yes or yachts. So now I'm going to test what you've learned and what you remember. 5. Tricky Sounds + Test: Well done. You've learned all the 44 sounds in English. Now, being able to produce them in isolation is one thing, but being able to identify them and use them correctly is another thing entirely. And now I'm going to test you. So first let's look at the difference between the sound and the sound. Can you see my mouth for a start when I say light up, I've got my my mouth open like that. But when I make the act sound, look at my mouth and it goes all the way out at stretching out to this ion app. I'm going to make the movement with my mouth. And you got to tell me. Am I saying or am I saying? Okay, here we go. I was saying where you write. So let's say the difference when we find the sound in the middle of a word. So it's a difference between cards, cuts and cat count. So to make the ass and you have to go your mouth has to go up. And so carts and cat. Which word am I saying? I was saying cat, we write. Okay, let's introduce another sound. What about the dentist sound? The sound r, r, r, r, r, r, r. And the sound is coming from the back of my mouth. Are you find the R sound in words like car, car. So I'm saying current and R are silicon. My mouth is Evan quite wide. Our car. Car. Okay. So we've got cat, we've got cuts and we've got car. Now i'm going to mouth one of those sounds and you have to tell me which one is ready. I was mouthing car we write, okay, I'm now going to undo the fourth sound and that is the sound of 00. So my mouth is open, are a bit like R. But look at the shape of my mouth or the sound is coming from the back of my mouth. Oh, oh, oh, oh. So we find the O in words like coats. Say caught. Okay, so we've got a cat cuts car. And now we've got caught. Practice saying those sounds. Cat cut, car. Caught. Ok, so there's full words I'm going to mount one of them. You have to tell me which word or mounting. I was nothing caught where you write another sound that confuses some students is the sound, which is the discussed sound versus the all sounds. So notice the difference. Work and walk that we've got the command now making the sound from my throat. And we've got all, look at the shape of my mouth on my lips. Or am I saying, Oh, you're right. I was saying all OK. So we've got work and we've got a wall. What about this word? Am I saying or am I saying? All? I was saying? I was saying Kurt, What about this word am I saying or I was saying ball. So that's the old sound we write. Have a look at these words. Do we pronounce these with the sound or the o sounds? It you said, you're right. All. If you said all your rights, it's really important that you practice these in front of the mirror. Thinking of it like a mouth work out. Your mouth has to get used to moving in certain directions, directions that it might not move in in your when you're speaking your own language. So I really hope you've enjoyed this course. Let me know if you have any questions or you have any feedback. Don't forget to follow. 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